I read an article in the Atlanta paper today that floored me so I asked my wife, " what do you think the average person in Georgia spent on the lotto in 2010"? She said 5 bucks. I was thinking maybe 10-15 assuming most people dont play.

The answer...470.73! I'm totally stunned by that number. The article goes on to say that in a single week in Georgia, a state with about 10m people, they spent over 100M or 10 bucks a person in a single week.

http://blogs.ajc.com/news-to-me/2012/03/....

Wtf?

Yep. I believe it 100%. Used to have a delivery route that covered the St. Johns river as it flowed out of Jax to the ocean and BEFORE Lotto that road was basically turned in to a parking lot on weekends as everyone would pack the kids and lunch and go fishing. AFTER Lotto not so much and it happened within a sixty day time frame.

I'm guessing that all that school money Lotto collected educated the children so much that they didn't see the need to go fishing with Mom & Dad on the weekends anymore... /sarcastic

Edit: to answer your question - ZERO

I can't recall a single time in my life that I ever bought a lotto ticket.

what about lotto puts

Playing the lotto ( assuming you can't rig it ) is on the same level as buying a policy insuring against death/injury incurred by meteorites.

lottery = tax on poor and ignorant.

I used to work in a convenience store for 4 years while I was going to school at UT. It was one of the busiest stores in Austin because of the neighborhood (Hyde Park). We called the Lottery "the stupid tax". For scratch off Lotto tickets, it says right on the back of the damn card that your chances of winning are around 1:4.5, so you win around 22 cents of every dollar back. We explained that to all the customers, showing them the ticket, and every single one swore, "I'm ahead!" It's mental sickness. Some were really far gone, spending $40-50/day, when they were driving an old 1970s land yacht that would barely start.

I spend zero on the lottery.

Here we have the lottery only a few times a year-- not a daily thing. Scratch tickets I guess we have year round.

Anyway when they do have a lottery, the line to buy tickets stretches halfway down the block, and they have to have guys out there with signs to show where the end of the line is. Every time I used to pass by with my kids I told them to whisper a word of thanks, as those generous souls were paying extra taxes so we wouldn't have to.

I'm shocked at the $470 amount. My total is of course zero. Do you have maybe neighboring states without lotteries, so people come over the border to play?

I would expect TF to be near zero and I agree this is a stupid tax. I think the smarter a person is, the less likely they play the lotto.

A quick check of neighbor states (FL, SC, TN, AL) showed only AL does not have the lotto currently so maybe we get some from there but I doubt it's too much. Miss on the other side of AL has full casino's if they want to gamble and AL has dog tracks.

I have to think half the people in the state never pay and this is slated towards the poor so let's just say we have poor folks paying almost 1000 bucks a year to play! This is a joke.

Saying it is a stupid tax implies that were the spender to save the capital they would be able to significantly improve their life with it. I would not say that is the case. For these people, the lottery is really their only chance at finding an open gate on the plantation one day.

Just after loto games began in CA, I found a ticket on the street that turned out to be worth $77. I've never given even a buck of that back to 'em.

My old job they'd get a pool together for the big jackpots and I'd throw in a few bucks to be social, but that crew was mathematically challenged to be sure

My current job would probably fire someone for being that ignorant, the brainpower per square meter is about as high as I've seen since TJ Watson.. People doing stoichiometric analysis in their heads and ****

Me? Regular lottery tickets? Maybe 2-3 in my entire life. None in the last 20 years. Scratch tickets? Maybe 10-total. None in about 25 years.

Dh? I don't know why he does it. Doesn't make sense to me. But, occasionally, when I'm going through his wallet for receipts (to match up to cc statement), I'll find a stub. Or sometimes in the glove compartment. I'm guessing he maybe buys 5 or so a year. What the heck, for the price of a Starbucks, he can dream the ultimate dream-lol!

This thread made me pull out my old cigar box. I have two old lottery tickets from the New York Lottery that never happened. NY started a lottery in 1975 for fifty cents a ticket. The first prize was 250K. I remember the first time I played, I won 50 bucks. Anyway, an investigation revealed that the lottery was rigged and they cancelled the lottery. You could turn your tickets in for a refund but I kept mine. They're dated OCT 31, 1975. Even back then, everything was fraud. Last time I played was about a year ago. Just that once for the dream of winning 330 mil.

i probably spend $100 a year on various lotto tickets and scratch offs.

$0.00

life's enough of a lttery without subsidizing the state's version

Lifetime total? $2.00. (The first time there was a $100M+ prize, and I was visiting Philly at the time.) Circa 1984.

Not much "fun" quotient in spending real money on a hopeless bet...

Buying lotto tickets and putting them in the bday card of a friend is about the best use I've seen for them. You don't get the awkward situation from putting in money, and they could win something, but there is the excitement level regardless if they were all losers.

Real lotto tickets, never. Scratch offs? Maybe $100 over my life. At least 1/2 of those were used as bday/christmas presents.

I have won the lottery 30 or 40 times, and never spent a penny on it.

500,000 to 15.6 Million Euros.

I still have the emails, I just need to send my name abd bank info to claim the prizes....

Maybe 20 bucks a year.

I'm probably net break even.

I haven't played it on a regular basis since the early 90s when I would buy one ticket a week. I used to use the same numbers every week and one day they came up the first time that I had forgotten to play them in almost a year. I'll never forget sitting in the bar I used to frequent when they called the numbers. I just sat and stared at the TV for a few minutes and when the barmaid asked me if I was all right, I asked her for a double shot of vodka, then another. She came back a few minutes later and asked if I was okay. I told her "Did you see the numbers that came out for the lottery? I've played them every week since last year. I didn't play them this week."

Over six million before taxes that week.

The best use for lottery tickets is the chinese gift exchange at christmas time. So much drama over $10 of lotto tickets (which are probably worth nothing).

I would never give a lottery ticket as a gift-lol! Its a lose-lose. When the recipient gets the big goose egg, he/she realizes that you spent more on the card than the gift. And if it wins? You get to stew every day for the rest of your life realizing that you gave away $100M to someone you barely knew (I say barely knew because once you realize that the person will not split the prize with you...maybe give you a couple grand, while he quits his job, buys a mansion, buys a boat & sails around the world-all the while you are about to get laid off, are upside down in your mortgage & your wife is boinking the Fed Ex guy).

I can't see how giving a lottery ticket is ever a good idea.

I spend less than $5 a year, it's always on a lark when getting gas in NA.

They have 2 lottos in China.

China Welfare Lottery
China Sports Lottery

I never play.